Leukocyte locomotion and regulative serum effects in rheumatoid arthritis.

Leukocyte locomotion (LL) of 40 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was found to be unimpaired as compared to LL of 23 control individuals (p Greater Than 0.2). Casein and zymosan activated human sera were used as cytotaxins, and the sera of RA patients proved to be activatable in the same way as control sera in that they produced a similar chemotactic activity (p Greater Than 0.2). However, RA sera inhibited LL significantly (p Less Than 0.01) in comparison to control sera. This phenomenon was unchanged after elimination of immune complexes be ultracentrifugation, but could be reversed, after incubation of cells with RA sera, by reincubation with control sera.